Chapter 12 Galwell #2
Meaning his wounds. Blood loss. Sanguinary of that nature only. Nothing to do with blood flowing . . . elsewhere.
“So this is what Mythria’s hero wears to bed,” she remarked. “How . . . cute.”
She slid one finger down the stained silk. Indeed, Galwell did find his patterned eagles cute. However, this was precisely the problem. His sleep clothes were shredded.
“You . . .” Galwell struggled to speak. “You shot me.”
“You let my prey escape,” Mona returned.
Galwell frowned. Despite finding their unintended closeness inconvenient, he could not risk releasing her or opening himself
up to her cunning combat style. “You cannot just go around robbing people,” he chastised her sternly.
Mona rolled her eyes. “I’m a crime lord. That is literally exactly what I do,” she retorted. “Why should I let my underlings
have all the fun?”
Galwell found himself distracted. Their combat had left Mona breathing hard. Hood off, her robe had descended halfway down
her shoulders, revealing the corset she wore underneath. The constricting garment compressed her chest, the tops of her breasts
heaving evenly under Galwell’s effortful consideration.
No! He could not succumb to her cleavage! He would focus on . . . evil! Yes, evil!
“That’s not honorable,” he declared. “Or virtuous.”
He was speaking half to himself, of what the sight of Mona beneath him produced in his heart.
He hastily leapt off her. She could shoot him with her crossbow if she wanted. Nonetheless, he offered her his hand gallantly
to help her up.
Mona eyed him, seeming puzzled, then laughed. Hesitantly, she placed her hand in his.
“No. It’s not honorable or virtuous,” she concurred. She stood, hand in Galwell’s. “Neither were the nobles in that carriage.
In Vestriya, no one is. Live here long enough and you’ll see what’s under the veneer. My pitiful, defenseless marks,” she
emphasized mockingly, “employ desperate children in their gem mine and don’t even pay them an honorable wage. As you prepared
to sacrifice yourself for them, they spared not a single thought for your life.”
She looked like she expected her revelation would stun him. She hoped to chasten him with her hardened, shrewd worldliness.
Instead, Galwell considered her. He remembered how unsurprised she seemed when his friends magically materialized in her club’s
private room. How often she’d seemed to read people, including them, with uncanny intuition.
He remembered how she’d predicted his every punch—until he’d stopped thinking, giving himself over to instinct.
They spared not a single thought for your life . . .
“You’re a mind reader,” he murmured.
Mona smiled humorlessly. She pulled her cloak back up over her shoulders. When she retied the ebony fabric, she left the hood
down, her hair spilling around her like night itself.
“If that were true,” she replied slowly, “then I would know every dirty thought you’ve had about me, now, wouldn’t I?”
Her hand lingered on her corset’s fringe, fingers playing with the top stays, as if she might unbutton just one.
Galwell the Great did not have the magic for this sort of strength, either.
When he was silent, his knees weakening with what he knew was not exsanguination, Mona laughed, and he realized what she’d done.
“You pretend to be all virtue,” she drawled, her words heavy with seduction, “but there’s more to you, I think.”
Galwell recovered himself, for on matters of honor, he feared not Mona’s mind reading. He knew his own heart. He was virtuous and good. His thoughts about Mona or anything else didn’t change that. Thoughts did not make a hero. Actions did.
“There’s more to you, too,” he returned levelly. “You pretend to enjoy crime, yet you target those who deserve punishment.”
Now she pantomimed gagging. “I didn’t target them. I stumbled upon nobles with a broken carriage and I took my opportunity. Yes, their thoughts revealed their crimes.
But make no mistake, Galwell. Everyone is guilty of something. Which means everyone deserves what I might choose to do to
them.”
“Perhaps Vestriya merely needs more heroes to inspire her,” Galwell protested, hearing how naive he sounded despite his own
conviction.
He expected Mona to laugh at his earnestness. Instead, something shadowy descended over her face.
“There are no heroes here or anywhere, Galwell the Guileless,” she replied. “Only villains.”
Galwell possessed not his sister’s heart magic nor Mona’s penetrative powers. But he didn’t need them to feel the sadness
in Mona’s words.
“That’s not true,” he insisted. She was welcome to roam his mind—she would find only sincerity.
“If you had my head magic, you would know,” Mona said. “You wouldn’t be so heroic if you heard the very worst things every
seemingly poor victim has done.”
She sounded weary. What had she seen in others’ souls? he wondered. What horrors had she known?
He saw Mona differently, suddenly. Huddled on the corner, her cloak drawn.
She wrapped herself in night for protection, not intimidation.
Surround yourself in darkness—let it embrace you—so it never surprised you.
This conviction, Galwell knew, was the only consolation her horrible power left her. What a lonely life she led.
“Stop that,” she snapped.
Galwell’s focus sharpened, and he realized what she meant.
“I demand you stop pitying me,” she insisted. “I’m evil. Don’t overthink it.”
“Who has hurt you, Mona?”
She faltered.
“Not used to having someone read you, are you?” he asked.
When Mona said nothing, her face tightening, Galwell smiled, smug. He knew people sometimes suspected his hroxen-like strength
meant Galwell shared the herd animals’ intelligence. Not so.
“I know a little of your childhood,” he went on. “Clare told me how you were raised in a band of thieves, by people who did
some pretty terrible things for coin. How they would involve you. That must have made you feel—”
“Don’t,” she warned, motionless. He remembered how she’d characterized her noble marks—my prey. Yes, she looked poised with the patience of a fearsome cave-dwelling nightwalker now.
“But you must not have wanted to live like them,” he went on recklessly. “You left your family. You left Mythria. You escaped.”
“I escaped nothing.”
“Clare—”
She cut him off. “Clare was lucky. He always is. He stayed behind. He got rich on heroism. I tried to start fresh. I found a new family—people my age who were striking out on their own. We settled in a small village
in Vestriya, trying to live better than we were raised. You know what happened to them?”
Galwell knew. He could see it in her eyes. Tragedy. Pain.
“I learned something when I lost them. You’re only as good as the worst thing you’ve ever done.
And everyone has done something horrible.
There’s no redemption. No change. No hope.
There’s only those who can admit it and those who lie.
” She turned toward the moonlight, letting it cast her face in cold silver.
She knew every horrible part of humanity, Galwell realized. But surely she knew its goodness, too. Surely her magic showed
her the light along with the dark. Perhaps if he could bring her back to Mythria with him, bring her to Clare . . . maybe
he could save her.
Mona’s expression shuttered with damning immediacy. She snatched her crossbow from the flagstone and threw the weapon over
her shoulder.
“Stay out of it,” she hissed. “You won’t be saving me from anything.”
Now Galwell startled, for Mona’s menacing was no longer playful. She seethed with the stung fury of the unsuspecting.
“You’re not the hero you pretend to be,” she spat. “In fact, you’re no one. The greatest thing you ever did was die, and you
didn’t even do that right.”
Galwell said nothing.
“Now you’re only”—her eyes locked with his—“a burden.”
He clenched his jaw. He knew she’d read his thoughts, collected his insecurities to fire at him with more accuracy than even
her arrows. She wasn’t saying this because she believed the words. She was saying it because he did.
When she walked defiantly past him, he let her. As she did, she knocked her shoulder into his injured one—a final reminder
of how much she could hurt him.
Oh, he knew.